EDUCATING OURSELVES by Chuck Morris
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Lifelong learning and personal development can be the means to steadily improve oneself and position you to take advantage of good job opportunities when they arise. Many of us read as often as time allows, and that is a good place to start. Reading is good, and if some of the material you read is motivational and career enhancing, so much the better. However, have you thought about continuing education? Take a look around you, and you may notice some of your peers attending night classes, distance courses through Thompson Rivers or other colleges and universities. How do they make the time to do this? Why are they adding to their work load? Many of these people work ten or eleven hours a day and then they spend another two to three on studies! Don’t they have a life? Yes, they do have a life. Albeit a busy
life, they are laying the groundwork for an even better one! We know that investing a little more in the way of resources on a project will make it better, reducing downtime and additional costs. Life is much like that when it comes to education and enhancing your time on this earth. In our jobs, we are continually bombarded with new technology, improved methods to accomplish specific tasks, conservation ideas that can save thousands of dollars for the district, and much, much more. How do YOU keep abreast of these things? The simplest way is to pick up a book and read it. That can be a start. Oh, it does not have to be a three inch volume on energy management, but something much smaller and to the point. We need to begin somewhere! “But (you ask) where do I look? I can
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think of a few issues that I need some information on, but not much else.” Do not underestimate education and your needs. Even IF you THINK you know it, you still need more on that topic. Take customer service as an example; in our jobs, we deal with thousands of customers! Teachers, students and parents are our customers. Treat them like anything else and you will pay for it. We can always learn more to improve our customer service, energy management, interpersonal skills, duty to accommodate or ethics. Get the picture? You need to remember, this is as easy as picking up a book. But don’t stop with that book! There are lots of them out there. Walk into Chapters or Indigo Books and cruise the Leadership or Management sections. The number of books will floor you as you stand in front of the shelves reading titles like You.INC!, Make Your Life A
